Oct. 26 MSHCA Meeting Recap

CANTON, Mass.--The MSHCA held its first meeting of the season on Wednesday night in Canton to discuss matters for the upcoming season and beyond.

One notable change coming this season: overtime in the playoffs.

Framingham High School interim athletic director Paul Spear, who spent the last 17 seasons coaching the boys hockey team at FHS, confirmed that tournament hockey will now have two six-minute periods of 4-on-4 followed by 3-on-3, rather than the old system of 5-on-5 followed by 4-on-4.

Billerica Memorial High School athletic director Dave Lezenski, a District A representative on the MIAA Ice Hockey Committee, was influential in the move.

Additionally, full penalty time will be in place for the 2017-18 season. Minor penalties will switch from one-and-a-half minutes to two full minutes, while major penalties will go from four to five minutes. The penalty time switch is in compliance with the NFHS rules.

Expect a change to the Super Eight format in time for the 2017-18 season as well. A subcommittee has been tasked with creating two new proposals to replace the current system, which has been in place since the 2012-13 season.

Items not adopted at this time were a switch from 15 to 17-minute periods, which would have added the equivalent of 2 2/3 full games to a team's season. Power seeding for the postseason, which is used in sports such as football and lacrosse in Massachusetts, was also left tabled at this time.